Operating Systems

Unfortunately we've come upon another week of lectures that don't conveniently apply to the OmniEXP project, but we're going to have to make do anyway. So this week I'm going to discuss about operating systems as they apply to the project. The way I see it, there's really only two major ways that I can think of that OSes really fit into the OmniEXP concept, those being a) what OS our web servers will use and b) OSes as they apply to mobile devices. I'll take about both of those, and then briefly discuss open source software and how it can apply to OmniEXP.

So, first off we have our web servers. The three major players in that field would be Windows 2008, Apple OS X Lion Server, or some form of Linux. As far as cost effectiveness goes, Windows 2008 is by far the most expensive, costing several hundred dollars. After looking it up, I found that Apple's Lion Server was surprisingly cheap at only 50 dollars. I didn't do enough research to know if this was just a bare bones basic version or not, but if its comparable to Windows 2008 then thats an amazing price difference. Finally, Linux is open source so that would obviously be the most cost effective, although I didn't research whether or not there are professional versions of Linux server OSes that are distributed at cost, so that price comparison could be slightly false. As far as utility and effectiveness goes, from what I can tell it seems as if Windows 2008 or some form of Linux (likely Red Hat or SUSE) are the two major players in the server game. I'm honestly not sure about Apple, mainly because I've never really heard of a server running OS X. I would assume that's because of performance inferiority, but I am unsure.

Second comes mobile operating systems. As far as this relates to OmniEXP, I'm mainly thinking about app development. It pretty much goes without saying that the two big dogs are Android and iOS, so both should be prioritized as far as development goes. With the smartphone industry as cutting edge as it is, and with the emergence of the tablet market, there is a high level of potential for OmniEXP's growth in these areas, and should not be overlooked. I am hesitant about the concept of pricing structures for an app of this nature, it seems to fly in the face of what social media is about, but if the project were to theoretically blow up, one might consider exploring something like a premium option.

Finally, lets talk a little bit about open source. I don't believe it would be in OmniEXP's best interest to go open source. Like all social media endeavors, the project would be successful only if it provides a unique and entertaining user experience that can't be found elsewhere, and handing out our source code to anyone who asks only invites potentially fatal competition. My major concern here is compatibility with open source applications, namely open source browsers. Nothing annoys the techie quite as much as something being incompatible with their browser of choice, and considering the debatable fact that open source browsers are so far beyond proprietary browsers, we should make every possible compatibility accommodation that we can to these services without compromising our product.